


It Feels Like Success

by TalesOfOnyxBats



Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: Blood and Injury, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Hurt/Comfort, Injury, Injury Recovery, Major Character Injury, Physical Disability, Recovery, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-03
Updated: 2021-03-03
Packaged: 2021-03-15 17:55:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,283
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29812221
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TalesOfOnyxBats/pseuds/TalesOfOnyxBats
Summary: Prompt: Hurt/ComfortPair: Teo/AzulaSummary: After an accident, Azula loses an arm, Teo keeps her company as she works through the trials of adjusting.
Relationships: Azula/Teo (Avatar)
Comments: 6
Kudos: 11
Collections: 2021 Avatar Pro-Shipping Rare Pair Challenge





	It Feels Like Success

Mostly she can’t remember how it happened. She thinks that it was a rock, a very heavy rock. She does remember how much it hurt and she remembers the faces of onlookers. The horror on them when they realized what had happened. And, by Agni, they realized it considerably sooner than she had. She remembers asking, “what, what is it?” And then the searing pain. A pain like no other. She had already been on the verge of blacking out, the product of pain alone. She was already on the verge and then she looked to her agonizing arm. It goes fuzzy there. But one image is seared into her mind. One bloody image that she won’t forget. 

Her left arm, what remains of it, is bound beneath a mountain of bandages and gauze. She throws her head back against the pillow, pounding it in frustration and dismay while the tears leak down her cheeks. She doesn’t shed many of them, but she sheds enough of them for Zuko to reach out and squeeze her hand.

The only one that she has. 

It still hurts. It burns. Likely because they had cauterized it to keep her from bleeding out. She knows that she had bled a lot. She is still very pale and she is still very woozy and out of sorts. But not so out of touch that she isn’t aware of what has happened to her. 

Of what she has lost. 

“Zuko, no.” She mutters in a near whisper, “no, no.” But it is already too late. There is nothing for her to plead to save. And even if there was, they couldn’t possibly have salvaged her arm. She squeezes her eyes shut. 

She needs that arm. She needs it to lightningbend. “Zuko, how am I supposed to…”

Zuko gives her hand another squeeze. “The same way that you always do. You think of a clever work around.”

“You don’t even know what I was about to say.”

“Whatever it is, you always get through it.” 

But she isn’t sure that she can get through this or find a clever work around. She hovers her fingers over the bandages. She can’t bring herself to bring them down, to truly feel and accept what has become of her.

**.oOo.**

Azula doesn’t want them to take the bandages off. 

She doesn’t want them to take them off because she doesn’t want to see what lies beneath. No matter how smooth and clean the cut had been, she doesn’t want to see it. But little by little they unravel the bandages. 

She keeps her eyes fixed straight ahead of her. The final bandage falls away. “It’s very clean.” The doctor promises. “It healed very nicely.”

She would disagree. A nice healing would be a sprouting of a new arm. “I want to be alone.” She tries not to choke on her own request. 

The doctor nods and leaves her to her own struggle. She takes a deep breath and swallows hard before lifting a shaky hand. She still doesn’t look. She can’t, she doesn’t want to. She isn’t ready. 

She isn’t ready for what she is about to do either. She closes her eyes and grazes her fingers over the stump. Over the empty air where the rest of her arm should extend. She utters an ugly sort of choking noise. Something that is not quite a sob. To have touched it has made it real. Untenable. Concrete. 

To have touched it is to acknowledge that she is less than what she used to be. 

She is glad that she had requested privacy. She isn’t known for being beautiful when she breaks. 

**.oOo.**

The boy has no legs.

The boy seems to have no stress or damage over it either. 

She met him by chance. Somewhat by chance. The Avatar had brought him to Zuko’s birthday celebration. A celebration where she had received much more attention than she would have liked and a terrible helping of sympathetic stares and hushed whispers.

There were far too many well-meaning people. Well-meaning people that only made her feel weaker, more fragile. She doesn’t want to be coddled. She doesn’t want pity. She wants them to see her as if she were as strong and whole as ever. 

She doesn’t want to be a tragedy. 

She wants to be an impressive success. 

“It’s more satisfying.” Teo promises. “When you do things that you’re not supposed to be able to do.” 

She tilts her head. “What do you mean?” 

Teo looks at his legs. “They said that I’d never be able to get to the top of a mountain or travel long distances. He pulls a lever on his wheelchair and a glider unfurls. “I lived in the Northern Air Temple. I got to the top of a mountain every day.” He declares. 

“I can’t bend lightning with just one arm.”

“Yet.” He adds. “You can’t bend lightning with one arm  _ yet _ .” 

And he says it with such conviction. Such assurance. She nearly believes him. She might have if she hadn’t been trying to do just that since losing her arm. “Teo, I’m struggling to button my own pants! How do you expect me to be able to lightningbend?” Evidently she has been mostly wearing loose, slip on clothes. Things that don’t require fussing with buttons, ribbons, or zippers. And when she does wear such, her servants do much of the work. 

“Then why don’t you keep practicing?”

Even he knows that she is babying herself, taking the easy way out. She is ashamed and furious with herself. She rants and raves about how she doesn’t want special treatment or pitying looks. About how she wants to be her powerful self and here she is, avoiding putting on a pair of pants.

She stands up, putting a ridiculous amount of force into doing so.

“Where are you going?” He asks. 

“To put on a pair of fucking pants, Teo.” She hisses. 

She isn’t sure how or why he puts up with her turbulent temper. She takes a deep breath. “I didn’t mean to snap at you. I’m frustrated.” 

Teo smiles. “I get it. Trust me, I do.” 

She pauses and waits for him to catch up to her. She leans down and lets him give her a small kiss. At least she is making progress in one or two areas of her life. At least she doesn’t have to go through this alone. At least people aren’t cheering for and reveling in the loss of her arm. 

At least she’s a likable, albeit, standoffish person. 

It might be spite and willpower alone. 

Or it could be Teo refusing to avert his gaze from her struggle. 

But she buttons the pants.

**.oOo.**

She learns to thread a needle too. It takes holding the damn thing between her toes and ruthless determination. 

She learns to tie other knots. Mostly this is practice and very careful finger work. 

She learns to unscrew jars without the perks of a second hand to hold the jar in place while she twists on the lid. This is mostly a clever innovation; she uses things that she finds around the palace to clamp it in place while she twists the lid. 

She learns to fight. To adjust her katas and stances to fit her new center of gravity. How to defend and attack with only one arm. 

She learns to climb. This is another matter of determination and resilience. Of strengthening her core, her legs, and the arm that she does have to make up for the one that she doesn’t. 

More than anything she learns to accept the unflattering and maddening asymmetry. Learns to accept that she only has one arm. Learns to appreciate herself in spite of it. Learns to find a sense of beauty and confidence in knowing that she has managed to find stability for herself where others might not have been able. Learns to appreciate that she stands out, that she draws attention, and that they have stopped looking at her with pity and started regarding her with more respect than the ever had. 

She learns to do a lot of things but lightningbending is not one of them. 

She takes a deep breath and tries again. She sees the sparks, they dance up and down her arm, but they disperse, having no other arm to flow through, no other arm to provide the balance and stability--the symmetry necessary for an effective blast. 

She sighs and drops to the floor, drawing her knees up. “It’s useless, Teo.” 

“It isn’t useless.” He promises. 

“I can’t do it…” if she could have she would have and she would have done it months back. 

“You said the same thing about climbing. And before that you said the same thing about finding love.” He holds his hand out and she takes it in her own. It is warm. As she so often does, she finds herself a seat in his lap. She leans against his chest and he loops his arm around her. Sometimes she likes to sit in silence and listen to the beat of his heart while he rubs her back or strokes her hair.

That day is such a day. It is soothing. He is always soothing, a means of solace when she is nearly inconsolable. He intertwines his hand with hers and mumbles encouraging, loving things. Just as he had when she was beaten and bedbound. 

She lets herself drift off. And he lets her relax until she is very nearly asleep and then he asks, “you going to give it another try?” 

Azula sighs. She stands up, stretches her back, and stretches her arm. She closes her eyes and draws the lightning forward. She can swear that she almost has it, she can swear that she will do it this time. But the sparks sputter and die, leaving disappointment to fill their vacancy. 

“I just doesn’t work.”

“Because you’re still trying to do it the conventional way.” He points out.

She furrows her brows. She isn’t sure how she hadn’t thought of that on her own. Granted she has been able to do a good many of her other forms quite similarly to how she had before. But lightning...it is a thing of its own. It is fickle and unpredictable on a good day. A controlled chaos. 

She closes her eyes again and pulls the lightning forward. This time she doesn’t raise her arm, rather she holds her index and middle finger to the base of her fire chakra and draws the lightning up from it’s very source. 

Slowly, very slowly. She can feel its electrifying tickle in her belly. She inhales deeply, she thinks that the lightning has filled her lungs. She trails her fingers up her throat and exhales. If she had thought that it was going to work she might have given herself a more stable stance. 

As it were, the bolt blasts forward and she is thrown back. She lands on the mat with a sturdy, breath stealing thud. Her elbow and rear throb and her throat tingles with the aftershock. 

But she had done it, there is a decent and smoldering hole in the wall. She lets her head fallback and stares at the ceiling as she waits for the throbbing to pass and her breathing to stabilize. 

She forces herself to sit up.

Teo blinks, “that’s terrifying.” He meets her eyes. “Do it again.” 

She gets to her feet. “I don’t know how many of those I have in me.” Though this has never stopped her before. This time she takes a sturdier stance. Regardless, she finds herself thrown back, albeit with less force and impact than before. But such a thing isn’t exactly combat ready. It’s a work in progress she supposes. 

Reflexively, she makes off to rub her throbbing elbow. She swallows and sits back on Teo’s lap, “massage my elbow.”

“Of course, princess.” He chuckles. “But only because you made progress today.” He taps her nose. 

“If you call knocking myself to the floor progress.” She pauses. “I suppose I’m just going to have to figure out how to control the amount of lightning that comes up.” Certainly it will be an exercise in patience. But it will also be an opportunity to truly focus on her bening and its essence. She supposes that she ought to work on perfecting the release of her chi to the precise amount that she’d like. “I think that I will resume tomorrow.”

Teo nods. “You know your limits. Good enough?” He gestures to her arms.

“Yes.” She thinks that he has worked most of the knots and throbs away. She kisses his cheek. 

“I knew that you could do it.” 

She supposes that she should have known too. Perhaps if she had, it wouldn’t have taken her so long. Regardless, for her struggles, she had received her fill of soothing gestures and loving reassurances. The sort that she has craved for so very long. She gives his neck a kiss. It is rather nice to have someone who believes in her without pushing her. 

“Want me to take you back to your room?”

  
She shakes her head, “dining room.” She could use something to soothe her throat. It must sound like as much because he gives another chuckle. 

“Alright, dining room it is.”

**.oOo.**

Her throat still tingles as she helps Teo into bed. She tucks the man in and lays herself down. The tingle in the throat isn’t exactly pleasant. And yet she is glad that it is there. It is uncomfortable. It feels somewhat sharp. 

It also feels like success. 


End file.
